Re: layout of web pages

[Philipp Frauenfelder <pfrauenf@debian.org>]

Darren Benham <gecko@benham.net> writes:

> However, I always thought that <P> stand-alone was how the paragraph tag was
> orginially defined and therefore would be historicly correct...

Not only historicaly but also by definition. Here is a quotation 
from

-------snip--------
9.3.1 Paragraphs: the P element

 <!ELEMENT P - O (%inline;)*  -- paragraph -->
 <!ATTLIST P
   %attrs;                    -- %coreattrs, %i18n, %events --
   >

Start tag: required, End tag: optional
                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[...]

The P element represents a paragraph. It cannot contain 
block-level elements (including P itself).

We discourage authors from using empty P elements. User agents 
should ignore empty P elements.
-------snip--------

Summary: no end tag required but discouraged for additional 
white space (empty paragraph).

Gruss
Philipp